Why Is A Wedding Dress White

The wedding of queen victoria and prince albert on 10 february 1840 is credited with popularising one key matrimonial trend the white wedding dress.

Why is a wedding dress white. A white pashmina shawl or cardigan. Between the drinking the dancing and the scooping of desserts chances were. If you ve ever flicked through a bridal magazine you ll notice that wedding dresses come in a range of styles.

Even if it isn t the intent a guest wearing white can be seen as an attempt to upstage the bride and that s definitely a no no. More often than not though you will hear claims that brides wear white because it s tradition. She wore plain white to marry prince albert in 1840 and sparked a trend that s lasted to this day but surprisingly she didn t wear it.

In the years that followed it became fashionable for brides to wear white. Buying a white dress was seen as extremely impractical especially when one considered the festivities of a wedding. The same rule for white dresses applies to white shoulder covers if it looks like something a bride or her bridesmaids would wear skip it.

It turns out that white is still the main color you can t wear to a wedding. The white wedding dress now a common tradition in the western world originated with anne of brittany on the occasion of her marriage to louis xii of france in 1499. Eighty percent of brides wear white to their wedding and it s important that a bride stands out at her wedding.

After queen victoria s wedding wealthier brides started wearing grand white gowns because they could afford to have their white attire professionally cleaned brides would still wear their wedding dress long after the big day. Despite its pretty non sexist origin story the white wedding dress was subsequently co opted by a patriarchal society that decided to use white gowns as a symbol of women s sexual purity. For example a cotton cardi is likely ok while an angora bolero is not.

Until then most brides had simply worn their finest dress of any colour although among the wealthiest brides this was often silver white or cream. The dress outraged english aristocrats as white was traditionally the color of mourning. But it wasn t until 1840 when queen victoria married prince albert that the white dress was made popular.